GM posts highest profit in history
DETROIT (AP) — Just two years after it was rescued and reconstituted through bankruptcy and a government bailout, General Motors Co. cruised through 2011 to post the biggest profit in its history.
The 103-year-old company, leaner and smarter under new management, cut costs by taking advantage of its size around the globe.
And its new products boosted sales so much that it has reclaimed the title of world’s biggest automaker from Toyota.
GM may have a hard time breaking this record in 2012 because it is losing money in Europe and South America, and U.S. sales growth slowed in the last three months of 2011.
But the company’s performance in North America and Asia still helped it earn $7.6 billion for the year, beating the record of $6.7 billion set during the truck boom in 1997.
The profit won’t stop the debate about spending $49.5 billion in taxpayer dollars to save GM.
Post office may lose $18B a year
WASHINGTON (AP) — Mired in red ink, the U.S. Postal Service is warning it will lose as much as $18.2 billion a year by 2015 unless Congress grants it new leeway to eliminate Saturday delivery, slow first-class mail by one day and raise the price of a postage stamp by as much as 5 cents.
In a letter to Congress, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe described an updated five-year cost-cutting plan put together in coordination with Wall Street adviser Evercore Partners Inc. It reiterates many of the mail agency’s proposals to switch to a five-day delivery schedule, raise stamp prices and close up to 252 mail-processing centers and 3,700 local post offices.
Budget would cut produce testing
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — President Barack Obama’s proposed budget would eliminate the nation’s only program that regularly tests fruits and vegetables for deadly pathogens, leaving public health officials without a crucial tool used to probe deadly foodborne illness outbreaks.
The budget plan the president sent to Congress would ax the Agriculture Department’s tiny Microbiological Data Program, which extensively screens high-risk fresh produce throughout the year for bacteria including salmonella, E. coli and listeria.
Dems protest religious hearing
WASHINGTON (AP) — Religious leaders told a House panel Thursday the Obama administration was violating basic rights to religious freedom with its policies for requiring that employees of religion-affiliated institutions have access to birth control coverage.
The unity of the religious leaders contrasted with the partisan divide among lawmakers on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, with Democrats saying they had been denied the ability to present witnesses who might support the government stance or speak for the rights of women to reproductive health coverage.
They asked why women weren’t better represented among the 10 witnesses at the hearing.
The issue has sparked a political firestorm for the administration, with Catholics and other religious groups strongly protesting an original Health and Human Services ruling that religion-affiliated institutions such as hospitals and universities must include free birth control coverage in their employee health plans. The churches themselves were exempted from the requirement.
Obama last Friday modified that policy so that insurance companies, and not the organization affiliated with a church, pay for birth control costs, but that didn’t satisfy those testifying at the hearing.
Bishop William E. Lori, representing the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, compared the ruling to a law that would force all food providers, including kosher delicatessens, to serve pork.
“Does the fact that large majorities in society, even large majorities within the protesting religious community, reject a particular religious belief make it permissible for the government to weigh in on one side of that dispute?” he asked.
GM posts highest profit in history
DETROIT (AP) — Just two years after it was rescued and reconstituted through bankruptcy and a government bailout, General Motors Co. cruised through 2011 to post the biggest profit in its history.
The 103-year-old company, leaner and smarter under new management, cut costs by taking advantage of its size around the globe.
And its new products boosted sales so much that it has reclaimed the title of world’s biggest automaker from Toyota.
GM may have a hard time breaking this record in 2012 because it is losing money in Europe and South America, and U.S. sales growth slowed in the last three months of 2011.
But the company’s performance in North America and Asia still helped it earn $7.6 billion for the year, beating the record of $6.7 billion set during the truck boom in 1997.
The profit won’t stop the debate about spending $49.5 billion in taxpayer dollars to save GM.
Post office may lose $18B a year
WASHINGTON (AP) — Mired in red ink, the U.S. Postal Service is warning it will lose as much as $18.2 billion a year by 2015 unless Congress grants it new leeway to eliminate Saturday delivery, slow first-class mail by one day and raise the price of a postage stamp by as much as 5 cents.
In a letter to Congress, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe described an updated five-year cost-cutting plan put together in coordination with Wall Street adviser Evercore Partners Inc. It reiterates many of the mail agency’s proposals to switch to a five-day delivery schedule, raise stamp prices and close up to 252 mail-processing centers and 3,700 local post offices.
Budget would cut produce testing
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — President Barack Obama’s proposed budget would eliminate the nation’s only program that regularly tests fruits and vegetables for deadly pathogens, leaving public health officials without a crucial tool used to probe deadly foodborne illness outbreaks.
The budget plan the president sent to Congress would ax the Agriculture Department’s tiny Microbiological Data Program, which extensively screens high-risk fresh produce throughout the year for bacteria including salmonella, E. coli and listeria.
Dems protest religious hearing
WASHINGTON (AP) — Religious leaders told a House panel Thursday the Obama administration was violating basic rights to religious freedom with its policies for requiring that employees of religion-affiliated institutions have access to birth control coverage.
The unity of the religious leaders contrasted with the partisan divide among lawmakers on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, with Democrats saying they had been denied the ability to present witnesses who might support the government stance or speak for the rights of women to reproductive health coverage.
They asked why women weren’t better represented among the 10 witnesses at the hearing.
The issue has sparked a political firestorm for the administration, with Catholics and other religious groups strongly protesting an original Health and Human Services ruling that religion-affiliated institutions such as hospitals and universities must include free birth control coverage in their employee health plans. The churches themselves were exempted from the requirement.
Obama last Friday modified that policy so that insurance companies, and not the organization affiliated with a church, pay for birth control costs, but that didn’t satisfy those testifying at the hearing.
Bishop William E. Lori, representing the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, compared the ruling to a law that would force all food providers, including kosher delicatessens, to serve pork.
“Does the fact that large majorities in society, even large majorities within the protesting religious community, reject a particular religious belief make it permissible for the government to weigh in on one side of that dispute?” he asked.